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Russia fails to take full advantage of CIS

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MOSCOW, August 26 (RIA Novosti) - The Commonwealth of Independent States still has great potential, but reforms would only benefit it, experts told a respected Russian daily Friday.

Izvestia cited Yaroslav Lisovolik, the senior economist with the United Financial Group (UFG), as saying that the CIS, which succeeded the Soviet Union as a loose alliance of states, should not be disbanded under any circumstances. Lisovolik said all the industrialized nations were opting for three-tier integration, i.e. cooperation within the World Trade Organization (WTO) on a multilateral basis, with the European Union on the regional level, and through bilateral negotiations. The economist said Russia was losing to these countries in all the three areas, as it was failing to make the most of the CIS.

Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the lower house of the Russian parliament's committee for international affairs, told the paper that the CIS must not be disbanded. But he said it was true that the CIS did not keep up with modern trends and, most importantly, did not meet the interests of either member countries. Therefore, the parliamentarian said the CIS needed to be reformed fundamentally and modernized.

Ashot Airapetyan, the director of the Center for Interethnic Cooperation, said the CIS was not an economic but political organization, and it would last as long as Soviet-era leaders remained in power. He added that the law on the status of foreigners that was enacted four years ago was a deadly blow to the CIS, because people who wanted to work and live in Russia now faced obstacles that fueled anti-Russian sentiments.

Yevsey Gurvich, the senior researcher of the Economic Expert Group (EEG), said if ties continued to grow weaker and this process began to dominate, the CIS would gradually and naturally fall apart. On the other hand, he said if ties grew stronger, the CIS would become a commonwealth with real substance. According to the expert, nothing particular should be done now, apart from giving substance to the CIS, as it is useful both for Russia and all the CIS countries.

Gleb Pavlovsky, the president of the Effective Politics Foundation: I see no point in disbanding the CIS. Some of our allies are actually pursuing policies of other blocs rather than their own. They are the mediators of other blocs' policy inside the CIS. Therefore, it is pointless to expect any substantial integration within the commonwealth. But I think the CIS should be reformed from within.

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